On what she expects will be the "most exciting day of her life" next month, Jaclyn Cubillas will probably be working on a lush Northern California vineyard, surrounded by grapes destined to become fine Syrah and Zinfandel.
On that day, the UC Davis...

In 1995, Microsoft paid a reported $4 million to use The Rolling Stones' famous song "Start Me Up" in ads for its Windows95. According to one of Madison Avenue's most influential agencies, in 2014 that money would not be well spent.
MediaVest, an ad-...

Phillip-Michael Scales is a local singer-songwriter who goes by Briar Rabbit. He has just released his latest album, “From Your Bones,” which is as literate and soulful a pop album as its predecessors. Scales' uncle is B.B. King —...

See who ruled during disco's last big summer, via Billboard's Hot 100 chart archive.
10. "She Believes in Me," Kenny Rogers
The Gambler? In 1979? At his peak. About as far from disco as one gets, "She Believes in Me" was a No. 1 country hit and written by Steve Gibb (unrelated to the Bee Gees Gibbs).
9. "Shake Your Body" (Down to the Ground)," the Jacksons
The Jacksons' best disco-era effort.
8. "Chuck E.'s In Love," Rickie Lee Jones
Jones' biggest hit (she would go on to win the Best...

The private panel that moved last year to revoke the accreditation of City College of San Francisco has admitted in a court filing that all 15 members of its evaluation team recommended a less punitive sanction.
In the document, filed earlier this month in connection with a lawsuit against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, attorneys for the regional body confirmed that “fifteen members of the evaluation team recommended to the Commission that it impose probation...

On Feb. 10, 2013, Kimbra walked onto the Staples Center stage and accepted a Grammy Award from Prince, who added his own seal of approval before reading the Recording Academy's pick for record of the year.
"Oh, I love this song," he said of "Somebody That I Used to Know," the quirky pop hit by Gotye that featured Kimbra's vocals and topped the Billboard Hot 100, eventually selling 7.7 million copies and racking up more than half a billion plays on YouTube.
Such a public endorsement by a music legend...

Feist Photos

The storied Newport Folk Festival, which bills itself as “the original music festival” and has delivered historic moments on the East Coast since 1959, will uproot and head west in the fall for Way Over Yonder, a new festival taking place at the Santa Monica Pier.
The festival, produced by Newport, will take place on two stages on Oct. 5 and 6, and feature an impressive 10-artist roster that includes soulful country-rock singer Neko Case, songwriter Conor Oberst, Arizona geniuses Calexico...

British singer-songwriter James Blake started out making beautiful, disembodied, dubstep-inclined sound collages in his bedroom. In 2011 he released his self-titled, full-length debut, and, armed with a much-downloaded hit (an underwater-sounding cover of Feist's “Limit to Your Love”) and the usual assortment of accolades (a Mercury Prize nomination, a Bon Iver collaboration, an approving shoutout from Kanye West), he went out into the world. He sold a decent amount of records, fell in love...

Canada's Polaris Music Prize is putting the "white" in the Great White North.
Nominees for this year's award -- which seeks to recognize "creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music," according to a statement -- were announced early Tuesday, and Pop & Hiss is here to tell you that it's a truly horrifying collection, with more indie rock than you can shake an ice-encrusted maple leaf at.
Assembled by an "independent jury of over 200 music journalists, broadcasters and music bloggers from across...